Struggling with Meaninglessness

An Encounter With Three Black Devils

It was 12.05 AM in the midnight. I was walking home alone on the street after a long day. The night was cool and breezy, a perfect time for myself to do some mental masturbation. “What should I write on my blog this week?”Evolution? Psychology? Rationalism? Male supremacy to stroke my own ego again?”

Out of nowhere, I suddenly felt a strong force behind my back. I turned my head slightly. I saw from the corner of my eyes three tall figures shrouded with dark aura, tailing behind me.  I can’t see their face properly. Their face was black dark almost faceless. I call them the Three Black Devils and I don’t feel good about them.

Upon sensing potential danger, I paced myself trying to distance away from them. But these are no ordinary Devils. In an instant, they were right behind my back without me noticing it. Their dark aura was so intense. I heard plenty of stories of how innocent people was mugged and stripped to naked by these Devils. They spare nothing of the victim’s possession including their underwear. Royally doomed is me.

Immediately, I thought of the ‘precious’ item I was carrying in my bag – My laptop. Actually, I was willing to surrender my laptop to these Devils. What’s so big deal when you can find laptop everywhere ? But there were something I just can’t give away … – My 200GB of XXX VIDEOS in my laptop. I mean …after all the years of companionship and joy with my XXX videos, how could I let them go just like that? Some of these XXX videos were downloaded when I was 15.. and that’s … that’s like .. almost 10 years ago?? So much sweet memories. Furthermore, if Time = Gold, then the Time to download XXX movies = crazy amount of Gold. As a guy with Chinese ancestry, my genes always punish me with agonizing emotions if I ever waste Gold. So, no, I will not allow years of my hard work and effort to go in vain.

I’ve made up my mind – no way I’m surrendering my XXX videos to these rascals. I will protect my precious XXX videos at all cost even if it means breaking my bones. What am I gonna do for the rest of my life without my XXX videos? What will be the meaning of life then? How can I practice compassion if I can’t spread the joy of my XXX videos with the world via Bittorrent? I’m sure even Buddha would be unhappy if the world loss such a devoted follower in me who love spreading happiness to the world, right? right?

The Three Black Devils surrounded me in circle, giving me no room to run. Grinning and gazing me with an intimidating look, one of Devils finally broke the tense silence. He said in broken Malay …

Black Devil : Mari, ikut saya, kalau tak, saya hentam lu punya ah. (Come and follow me, or else I will smash you)

The Black Devils have spoken of their true intention. Not like I was surprised. It is a lie if I say I wasn’t even a little bit afraid. But I resolved, instead of dwelling in negative emotions worrying and panicking, it was better off to channel my mind to scheme of an escape plan. For the sake of my future happiness with XXX videos, I have no choice but to pull off a Houdini and I was pretty sure I would prevail. You know why? Because I read Sun Tzu Art of War, and they don’t. 

The Black Devil then grabbed my arm, and led me to a dark lane. My imagination ran wild. This is not an ordinary dark lane – It is Hell, a realm of no return where Satan awaits. I could imagine all my innocent XXX videos, kilobytes by kilobytes get sucked in to the bottomless pit, never to return to the face of the earth again. How cruel. My XXX videos do not deserve such eternal condemnation.

I feigned weakness and complied while quietly searching for solutions in my head. I took the first step. My brain was empty. I took the second step. Still empty. Third step. Still empty. After walking eight steps, my head was still empty, without solutions. Suddenly, there was an urgency in me. I knew I need to get out of here before it is too late.

What do you do if you can’t solve problems with brain? Common sense, you use brawn instead.

So, it looked like I have little choice but to fight them 1 v 3 , Ip Man style. I was fully pumped up, ready to rumble with the Devils. After years of reading Sun Tzu and mimicking Bruce Lee, finally the day has arrived to unleash my power. My arm’s muscles were as elated as myself as they could now fulfill their true purpose of existence. I told myself this will be the day I bring justice to humanity. Once and for all, I will banish these Devils to dust and bringing light to common people. Nothing will stop me in my quest to bring more happiness to the world. I vowed to be a saviour greater than Jesus Christ. I can’t wait any longer to unleash my Buddha Palm, Shadowless Kick, and Iron Fist I learned from watching Wong Fei Hung movies when I was a kid. These bad guys must be punished!

Just when I was about to unleash my Buddha Palm laden with Qigong, suddenly I saw light, literally – A car oblivious of what was going on headed our way. In sheer moment, something unexpected happened. My unconscious mind made a decision to fully seize control of my body without informing my conscious mind! Like a fascist and military junta, my unconscious mind gave me no liberty and emancipation – I have no say in the actions taken. Under the command of the unconscious, my arm shrugged off the grasp of the Black Devil, and then … my legs started to run away!

This is ridiculous. My dream of becoming a hero was dashed by the unconscious mind. I could hear Jesus Christ mocking me from the heavens and Sun Tzu sighed in disappointment. Unacceptable! What’s the use of my testosterone if I’m not gonna fight the baddies? Produce more redundant sperms? Feeling disgruntled, I summon an audience with Alter Ego to demand for an explanation.

Ronn : Hey, why the hell are we running away? Stop running. I order you to turn back and fight them like a man. Real man solve problems with fist, not legs!

Alter Ego: Permission refused. There is a 3.43% chances we will get trashed into pieces despite our superior Sun Tzu and Kung Fu knowledge. As a saying goes – Shit happens. More importantly, there’s a 52.94% chance our delicate skin will be bruised if we engage in fist battle. And I can’t allow that to happen since we still need to look for a girlfriend. Having a scar on our face is …. fugly.

Ronn: How shameful! How are we supposed to explain this to our cavemen ancestors who fought tigers with bare arms? Wouldn’t our ancestors belittle us for the shrinking size of our balls? Worse, what if there are girls around watching this whole ordeal? Our male ego, pride and manliness will all be flushed down the drain … No girls will look up to me anymore =(

Alter Ego: No worries buddy, I’ve scanned around, no girls. Nobody will know we are running away like a pussy *wink wink*. After calculating all the probabilities and chances, I conclude that running away is the best way to minimize risks. If we run, we will escape without getting our skin AND ego bruised. It is like farting once to choke two Devils.

Ronn : Oh really?? Dammit, you’re a genius alter ego! I will write a proper thank you note to you on my blog once I reach home, Ok? Thank You Alter Ego 2!

Alter Ego: Yes, Mr. Obvious, I know I’m a genius. Please tell me something I don’t know. 

Sun Tzu once said “Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise”. Just as within my Alter Ego’s calculation, my sudden escape totally caught the Devils off guard. The devils were stranded and shocked as they were distracted by the incoming car. They couldn’t believe I escaped under their nose. Ha, that’s the price to pay for overconfidence! The method of escaping was so simple, yet effective. What a gem, Sun Tzu! The Surprise factor not only works on conquering girls but even baddies Devils fell for it too. Don’t mess with Sun Tzu’s philosophy, yo! Now that I have done a Houdini, what are you gonna do now brown cows? Chase me in the middle of the road with other people around?

Speaking of the devil, the angry Three Black Devils really gave me a chasing! I almost forgot they were called Devils for a reason! Damn you Sun Tzu, you never told me anything about brainless angry devils. Oh my mother father granduncle, these dudes got the balls as big as Jupiter. Making loud roars, the angry Devils were chasing me with long chain in their hand like a hungry barbarian with a club eager to smash the rabbit’s head into pieces. Does my head really smell like rabbit? I saw the driver in the car amused of what was going on. He thought I was having some running competition with the Devils and cheered for me to run faster!

HELP ME DAMMIT! Typical dumb Malaysian!

With the rate of how things was going, my future looked bleak. I have little choice but to summon Alter Ego again.

Ronn: Hey, those crazy Devils are behind our ass! What should we do now, genius?

Alter Ego : Shit, I didn’t expect them to give chase in the middle of the road. These Devils are fearless! I didn’t factor that to my calculation, damn! Epic failed.

Ronn: I need a solution now, not ranting!!

Alter Ego : I blame Sun Tzu for what has happened. Not my fault.

Ronn: You better friggin’ get us out of this shit, or else I will go home and do a hardcore meditation to kill you off from my brain.

Alter Ego: No! Ah Ah! I got a super idea here! Hear me, this is what we need to do- Why don’t we … just keep running forward? And run as fast as we can!

Ronn: ……………

YES! You’re right! Why reinvent the wheel when the current method is already working so well? Good thinking, mate!

Alter Ego: Yes, that’s why Buddha was wrong. The ‘Architect’ still need the ‘House’.

After all, alter ego was right. Running is actually my forte, a secret weapon of mine. I turn on my turbo ala Usain Bolt style and accelerated. It was a pity I wasn’t holding a stopwatch to record down the new 100M sprint world record. Carrying a 5KG bag with my laptop inside did not even slow me down by a bit. Probably because of the power of my Nike snickers which I was wearing. The number one reason why I ran faster than the Devils, apart from my strong thighs was simple – I was wearing Nike shoes and the Devils didn’t and I ran 23.544634% percent faster. It showed that Nike is powerful. Nike is great. Nike is unbelievable. (Nike, if you are reading this and need more advertising from me, please don’t hesitate to E-mail me, OK?) .

Suddenly, things seemed peaceful. I looked back and saw the defeated Devils gave up, panting. Realizing that I’ve beaten the Black Devils, I went down on my knees, chins up, stuck both of my middle finger up in the air declaring to the world and heavens – VICTORY! A celebration of justice. A sign of triumph over evil. A gesture condemning the Devils to eternal embarrassment.

I gave myself a pat on my back. I have done Sun Tzu proud. Well done.

The Incident

OK, back to serious mode. Few weeks ago, I came across this at my apartment’s notice board.

Having being published in newspaper as one of the highest robbery areas (snatch thieves, mugging, shop robbery, house break ins) in Petaling Jaya, I was surprised people in my area only started to take notice now.

The story of the Three Black Devils may seem exaggerated but generally the core of the story was true.

• It happened almost 4 months ago
• I was almost mugged by 3 men
• It did crossed my mind to attack them
• I escaped when suddenly a car drove past us. Till today, I’m still amazed how easy it was to escaped having being surrounded by them.
• I was chased by them in the middle of the road. They were holding chain
• Being a typical Malaysian, I didn’t bother to report it to police.
• I did not told anyone about this. The only one I shared with was a friend of mine who also stayed around my area who was literally chased by a man with butcher knife
• And lastly my laptop doesn’t have XXX videos, ok! It is .. at somewhere else … safe =D

What do I do for self defense?

It didn’t left me any trauma or any sort of bad memories simply because I have expected this day would come since I do plenty of walking around my area. When you have expected the worse,  naturally you would be mentally prepared for it and nothing worse could happen.

• Practice my kicks and punches. Image training fighting with the bad guys. Learning martial arts from youtube!
• Since I do not drive, I usually do not go out at night if I’m not alert or tired unless fetched by friends. It takes plenty of energy to constantly scan the surrounding.
• Wear sports shoes if I know I’m going home late. (Nike! Nike! Nike!)
• Avoid suspicious group of people while walking alone. Constantly changing walking directions.